


Not Yet

by AdieSmed (annelea)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Attempted Murder, Emergency c-section, F/M, Murder, premature baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 18:08:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelea/pseuds/AdieSmed
Summary: He has found peace, and screwed it up.





	Not Yet

He awoke to the sound of gurgling.  
It's not like he hadn't done that before. Momentary blackouts from a good hit to the head in the middle of combat were known to happen. Usually, in those moments, he recovered quickly and found that his body had continued through its movements, dealing fatal blows to his opponent.

This was different. He wasn't clad in armor. No weapon was in hand. No, he was naked except for his underwear, surrounded by soft sheets, warm blankets, fluffy pillows. The warm stickiness of blood pooled where his weight dipped the mattress, its coppery smell filling his nose. He could feel a bit of it clogging a nostril.

  
A heartbeat ended under his left palm, gripped tightly around a slender throat.

Scratches stung on his face and chest. Bruises were forming here and there on his body. He was pretty sure some of his ribs and his cheek were cracked. His nose was definitely broken.  
Blinking, unmoving, his vision cleared.

Dead eyes stared up at him. Lovely eyes, with pink markings underneath, showed petichia from the strangulation that killed her.

No.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Three years of peace after ten thousand of fighting, lying, hiding, calculating. He had finally gotten his peace. He had slept beside her every night for the last year, deep, calming sleep. Sometimes, sometimes he would wake up to her lips and a languid session between her thighs. Then, once more in the morning, sometimes still in bed, sometimes in the shower.

Why was his hand crushing her throat? Why couldn't he put down his fist, poised to punch once again?

His body began shaking, deep, uncontrolable, as he finally collapsed over her, violent sobs burning his throat. He didn't fear the imprisonment this would bring. He feared the time he had lost with her.

A squirming movement below his abdomen alerted him to another issue.

The baby. It would die if it stayed inside.

He prayed it was far enough developed to breathe on its own. Stumbling to the nightstand on his side of the bed, he grabbed for the smallest, yet sharpest weapon he could. He knew how to kill, very little about how to save. But he had paid attention for this. It was always a potentiality that she might be attacked while pregnant, and one of them might have to save the child.

  
Suddenly calm, he focused on cutting through the layers of skin, fat, muscle, and organ one at a time. He pulled the small, squirming baby free, head first, then severed the cord, tighing it in a knot quickly.

Right now, this precious thing was the most important person on the world. Allura was dead; he could grieve her later. His freedom was at an end. He could mourn that later. Right now, he placed his mouth over the baby's nose and sucked. He spit out the foul tasting slop, then repeated the motion over the baby's mouth.

"Come on, little one," he begged, "scream. Let me hear your voice."

Nothing. Yet, she kept squirming. That was a good sign, at least.

Stripping a pillow case, he wrapped the child up, holding it to his chest, and ran for the medical bay.

It wasn't empty.

Krolia was there, tending to a fellow Blade member's slashed leg.

"Lotor, what the hell?" she looked him up and down.

"Help me with her," Lotor presented the child to the woman. "You've done this before."

"Oh, shit..." Krolia rushed the child to the equipment specifically designed for infants and hoped it worked. This was the first time in ten-thousand years it would have been put to use. "Tell me, was it turned yet? Was her head towards the vagina?"

"I... I wasn't paying attention to that. I'm sorry."

"Well, you did a good job at clearing her airways, but the lungs are still filled. I need to suction them more, then reinflate."

The shakes were back. Krolia had enlisted the help of her injured friend. Someone caught him before he hit the floor and blacked out again.

He awoke in the holding cell, still covered in blood and other bodily fluids, his underwear sticking to him as the fluids dried the cloth to his skin and hair. It wasn't the first time he'd woken up covered in dried bits of the dead. Once he remembered whose blood this was, though, he puked. Over and over again, he kept retching, dry heaving, unable to stop.

"Give him a sedative."

"But he just woke up."

"He can't handle it yet."

"Fine."

He awoke this time on the hard bench, a light blanket draped over his now cleaned form. No, it wasn't a blanket. It was a fresh set of clothes. Someone had washed him and the confinement chamber. It smelled of sanitizer, and he smelled of a faint musk... Shiro's favored scent.

His hair had been brushed, too. That was an odd touch.

Well, at least they didn't just hose him off and leave him wet and cold. He knew that was a common practice in many prisons.

The ache in his chest returned. His body curled in on itself as the pain tore fresh sobs from his raw throat, but his eyes seemed empty of tears. They burned, but no soothing liquid filled them or ran down his cheeks.

He didn't know how long he lay like that, facing the wall, feeling empty, yet full of hurt. Someone had finally lowered the confinement field. He smelled food.

"I don't want to eat." Lotor sniffled, not caring that he appeared weak and childish. He felt weak and childish and he wanted to stay that way.

"You have to try," Shiro's voice spoke softly. "You have a daughter who needs her father."

That perked him up. He spun around to face the human man. "She survived? She will continue to live?"

"She will. She needs a name."

"Zhari... Allura liked that name..."

"Okay. Zhari it is." Shiro sat beside him, putting the food between them. "Come on. Eat a few bites at least."

"Why are you being so kind to me?" Lotor asked, eyeing the food suspiciously.

"I know what happened. I've been there... just... she survived."

Lotor though on that momentarily. He remembered the day Shiro and Pidge started sharing quarters. They were awkward around the others for a while. Then, the day she moved back into her own room. Shiro was closed off to everyone, quiet, and avoided her, fearful. Pidge looked battered, burned on the side of her face, a scar she still carried today.

"Flashback nightmare. Just a little more to the left, and she would have..." Shiro's voice trailed off, swallowing the lump in his throat. "I watched the security feed in your room. It was obvious to me. Convincing the others that you didn't mean it... That's going to be harder. Keith and Lance might get it."

"Just kill me." Lotor hung his head. "I have been almost ready to die for a long time now... I just... I had a few things to do first, and then I was going to do it myself. Most of my goals are obtained. I can stop now. No child should have to grow up with a father like me."

"You have purposefully changed for the better," Shiro put a hand on his back. "That baby needs certain things, biologically, that science or a surrogate can't offer. With humans, babies without skin to skin contact with other humans will do worse than those with it. Coran tells me it is imperative that Altean children have skin to skin contact with their parents specifically. If you want your daughter to live, you must hold on until she can survive without you."

"I don't want to harm her, too."

"You will always be supervised, if that is what is needed."

Hesitantly, Lotor nodded.

"Come on, then. Eat. Then you can go and see her. She is breathing on her own now."


End file.
